double possessive
Americannoun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I refer to the “double possessive”, which is evidently a perfecdy respectable grammatical construction, but simply jars with me, and perhaps always will.
From Literature
The only time you drop the double possessive is when, instead of being involved with an animate being, you are “a lover of the British Museum”, because obviously the British Museum does not - and never can - love you back.
From Literature
We can now account for what has hitherto puzzled all grammarians, namely, the double possessive.
From Project Gutenberg
Personal pronoun, absolute use of, 63. agreement of, with antecedent, 287. as predicate nominative, 281. case of, 62. compound, or reflexive, 69. uses of, 70. definition of, 59. double possessive of, 64. 'em and them, 62. history of, 61. objective of, for nominative in spoken English, 63, 281. syntax of, 281. table of, 60. triple possessive of, 64. uses of it, 67.
From Project Gutenberg
Case, double possessive, of nouns, 54. of pronouns, 64. forms, number of, in Old and Modern English, 46. nominative, of nouns, 47. of pronouns, 62, 279. objective, of nouns, 48. of pronouns, 66, 279. possessive, of nouns, 49, 278. of pronouns, 63. syntax of, 278.
From Project Gutenberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.